THE PICNIC AT FLATROCK
On the very day that Alice counted out her money and found she had the seventy-five cents she needed for her much wanted camera and that Mary Jane had fifty cents, there came a telegram from Mrs. Merrill saying that she and Mr. Merrill would arrive the next morning for a stay of ten days.
"Now this is something like old times," said Grandmother happily as she and the two girls bustled around making ready for the guests. "Lots of cooking to do and two nice girls to help me do it. Seems like the days when our own girls were here! Mary Jane, you've done plenty of dusting for today; you go and get your grandfather to pick out two nice fat chickens for frys while I teach Alice about making her cake. She's going to have a beauty to show her mother, that's what she is!"
Mary Jane liked doing things with her jolly grandfather, so she skipped out happily and found him in the barn.
"Pick out some frys, should we?" he said. "All right, that suits me, only we'll fool her, Mary Jane; we'll get three! I believe in having enough, I do."
"What we going to do to-morrow, Pussy?" he asked when that job was done.
"Why, we're going to get Mother and Father at the train and then we're coming home."
"Oh, yes, I know that," said Grandfather, "but let's do more than that. Let's have a picnic to celebrate their coming."
"Oh, Grandfather!" exclaimed Mary Jane, "could we?"
"We certainly could," said Grandfather, "and I think it would be a fine thing to do. There's a full moon and we could go about four and come home by moonlight. Let's see what your grandmother and Alice think about it."